How do you cope with not being able to solve a problem?

[Saladsamurai]

make the problem easier. i.e. give your self more hypotheses, or make the conditions more special, or choose simpler numbers, and then try to gradually work your way back to the original problem. solving an easier version of the problem gives you both confidence and experience.

Where did mathwonk even come from!? Not that I knew you well, but I have not seen you in a while. Hope things are good!

 

[Theorem.]

Where did mathwonk even come from!? Not that I knew you well, but I have not seen you in a while. Hope things are good!

I am pretty sure he descended from the heavens holding only a vector calculus textbook and a hunting knife.

 

[twofish-quant]

Before you know it, you're relying on the solution, and this is about as useful as watching someone else lift weights.

Different people have different learning strategies, but I find looking at solved problems to be extremely useful for me. The thing that works for me is to read a *lot* of solved problems, and that's no more "cheating" then having a chess master look at games that have been played or an artist going into an art museum looking at old masters. Once you look at a lot of solved problems, then you start getting a sense of the strategies that are involved in mathematical problem solving.

Also, it's pretty easy to come up with problems that you don't have the immediate answer to. Once you figure out how to solve one problem, it's usually not that difficult to make the problem somewhat more complicated.

 

[bogarts21]

^ Agree.

To the OP, please don't feel very bad about not solving a problem. Just don't stop thinking and you'll get it, if not, somebody else would. And that's not a bad thing, scientists and engineers work together to build a better world.

 

[ronaldoshaky]

You know it's funny, that happens me a lot. I wouldn't say I was the most bright student of Physics, but I just keep at it. Eventually the penny drops. Hey, if Physics was easy then everybody would be doing it!

Oh yea, the secret to doing problems in Phys....read read read and read the textbook and read the other textbooks and the other ones too. There are so many resources out there.

Good luck!

 

[Theorem.]

I think that above all you have to remember that at the end of the day you are still only human.
Do your best, put in your full effort, use whatever resources are available (and there are always available resources) and keep yourself motivated.

 

[clope023]

Different people have different learning strategies, but I find looking at solved problems to be extremely useful for me. The thing that works for me is to read a *lot* of solved problems, and that's no more "cheating" then having a chess master look at games that have been played or an artist going into an art museum looking at old masters. Once you look at a lot of solved problems, then you start getting a sense of the strategies that are involved in mathematical problem solving.

 

[Ryker]

Just wanted to thank everyone for their input again. And I guess I wasn't (am not) really looking for a way to hack the problems themselves, but just a general philosophy, strategy or a mindset that I could apply to the fact that I am just not capable of solving a specific problem that I think I should. So this topic is more about accepting defeats than it is about avoiding them. From some of the posts it seems I didn't make my point clear enough, but what I wanted to say is that it seems I have imposed myself that, say, getting help for a problem isn't avoiding defeat, because defeat to me isn't not being able to solve the problem per se, but not being able to solve it by myself when I expect to be able to do so.

So, more generally, I was and am not looking for tactics on how to tackle Maths/Physics problems and, similary, not for ways of actually solving the problem, but for ways of dealing with not being able to solve it, when this not being able to solve is taken as an irrefutable fact.

Does it make sense?

 

[Klockan3]

Stop thinking "I should be able to solve this" and just think about the problem instead. If you can't solve it, then it doesn't mean anything other than that you can't solve it. There is a lot of problems I can't solve but there is also a lot of problems I can solve, I just figure that if I need to solve it at some time then I will learn how to solve it sooner or later so it is ok if I can't solve it right now.